Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

"As the SeaCat moved in to East Seven Five around a Beriev seaplane refueling from a a tanker pontoon, inflatable Gemini craft burst from between the legs of the craft and furiously circled the catamaran.

"He stepped back... and invited me to look at his collection. But the titles... were disappointing. They were old cloth volumes of Gurdjieff and Ouspenski, Velikovsky and Crowley--the usual pseudo-gnostic spiritualist bullsh--... Like the room itself, the books radiated dust and boredom. So this was Oscar Ziegler, one more pathetic old man with a penchant for magic and cabbalism. "

[Introduction to "Ching Witch! " by Ross Rocklynne] "...I give you Ross Rocklynne the man . . . after which Ross Rocklynne the writer will speak his marvelous piece.

'In 1953 L. Sprague de Camp wrote me for information for his book SCIENCE-FICTION HANDBOOK. I stalled. At the time I was studying under a black-bearded guru, and my vows precluded discussion of the ego... Still, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and the eastern pantheon are the pivots of my Beliefs today; that and the Teaching of the black-bearded one who became white-bearded...' "

Gurdjieff

USA

1985

Zelazny, Roger. Trumps of Doom. New York: Arbor House (1985); pg. 19.

"'She started with theosophy, even attended meetings of a local group. She got turned off on it fairly quick, but by then she'd met some people with different connections. Pretty soon she was hanging around with Sufis, Gurdjieffians...' "

"'...for it is written in the Book of Prognostics, a copy of which was brought to me on the wings of a yellow serpent, that the dynasty of Han shall rule once more, and the Tartar wolves perish miserably out of the Light of Flowers.' "

In the Han Dynasty, historians were appointed by royal edict to write the history of Imperial China. They alone were the arbiters of what would be recorded. Although various emperors tried, none could gain access to the ironbound chest in which each document was placed after it was written. The historians preferred to suffer death rather than betray their trust.

At the end of each reign the box would be opened and the documents published, perhaps to benefit the next emperor. But for these documents, Imperial China, to a large extend, has no history.

The thread survives by whim. "

Han

China

1990

Anderson, Poul. The Shield of Time. New York: Tor (1990); pg. 33.

"China's been under the rule of Shi Huang-Ti, the Mao of his day. Totally xenophobic. And now at his death, it'll be turmoil till the Han Dynasty gets established. " [Referring to a historical period circa 209 BC.]

"By the middle of the twenty-first century, all the other great federative superpowers of the world [other than the U.S.] had come apart, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics breaking up into its fifteen constituent states... Sinkiang and Tibet and Mongolia breaking free of the Chinese Republic, then China itself vanishing. Tang south sundered from Han north. "

Han

China: Ningxia

1955

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 301.

"During the Cultural Revolution, Xi had been consigned as a worker on an impoverished collective farm in Ningxia Province, near the Great Wall... where, while plowing an unpromising field, he uncovered an intricately ornamented bronze helmet from the Han Dynasty... The Cultural Revolution had attempted to sever a 5,000-year-old continuous Chinese cultural tradition... "

Han

China: Xinjiang

2050

Stephenson, Neal. The Diamond Age. New York: Bantam (1995); pg. 253.

"The Chinese Civil War began in earnest three years later... Not long afterward, the Muslim nations had finally gotten their act together and overrun much of Xinjiang Province, killing some of the Han Chinese population and driving the rest eastward into the maw of the civil war. "

"'Two in every five of the Kan slaves on Sado have deserted their masters. They live in the forests and worship pagan gods and eat pig flesh, as they do in Xanadu.... They hate us because many of the han owners are cruel men who think only of profit.' "

"'In one section the names are nearly all Han Chinese. Under each name is a description. Of his or her role in destroying a gompa [In Tibet]. Of participating in executions. Or looting shrines. Rapes. Murders. Torture. It is very explicit. As it is circulated it is expanded and updated. It has become something of a badge of honor, to add your name to its list of authors' "

"As in the western province of Xinjiang, the home of millions of Moslems belonging to central Asian cultures, Beijing was turning the native populations of Tibet into a minority in their own lands. Half of Tibet had been annexed to neighboring Chinese provinces. Population centers in the rest of Tibet had been flooded with immigrants. Endless truck convoys over thirty years had turned Lhasa into a Han Chinese city. "

Han

world

500 C.E.

Garfinkle, Richard. Celestial Matters. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 212.

"Ramonojon said. 'Taoist philosophy did not vanish the way Platonism did. When the first 'An emperor drafted the practical Taoists to make weapons, the real Taoists fled into the mountains of Tibet to hide. After the 'rebellion' they encountered some Buddhists who were also hiding, and Xan was born.' " [The text uses the word 'An instead of Han. May be other refs. specifically to the Han in novel but not in DB. Many references to the ancient Chinese in general.]

Han

world

2038

Brin, David. Earth. New York: Bantam (1990); pg. 126.

"One his way back to Auckland... Buses and minivans threaded the resort's narrow ways, hauling Australian families..., gushing Sinhalese newlyweds, serene-looking Inuit investors, and Han--the inevitable swell of black-haired Han--nudging and whispering in close-packed mobs... Most shops bore signs in International Ideogramatic Chinese, as well as English, Maori, and Simglish. And why not? The Han were only the latest wave of nouveau moyen to suddenly discover tourism. " [There are other references to Han Chinese in the book, not in DB.]

"The coffee shop was a shaded, open structure adjoining the gardens and pool. Baedecker ordered rolls and coffee and noticed from the corner of eye the 'Scheduled Class' woman mowing the lawn with a hand sickle. Untouchables remained untouchable in modern India, but they were no longer called that. "

Harijan

India

1999

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 207.

"At medical school in England she had met and fallen deeply in love with Surindar Ghosh, a fellow medical student. But Surindar was a harijan, an untouchable, of a caste so loathed that the mere sight of them was held by orthodox Brahmans to be polluting. Surindar's ancestor shad been forced to live a nocturnal existence, like bats and owls. " [More about these characters, not in DB.]

Harijan

India: Calcutta

1977

Simmons, Dan. Song of Kali. New York: Tor (1998; c. 1985); pg. 83.

Pg. 39: "'..My father had lived a long and useful life. Every man in his village, Brahman to Harijan, wished to attend his cremation...' "; Pg. 83: "'In the morning, as we rode to the center of the city, we asked the Harijan dead-animal transporters if they ever carried human bodies in their trucks. No, they answered, the City Municipal Corporation hired other men--poor men but men of caste--to go out in the mornings and retrieve the bodies which inevitably littered the sidewalks...' "

Harijan

India: Calcutta

1977

Simmons, Dan. Song of Kali. New York: Tor (1998; c. 1985); pg. 136.

"'...A few feet from us, an Untouchable woman was cutting the grass with hand clippers--'

'Please,' said Chatterjee, and the grimace was visible now on her smooth features. 'We prefer to say Scheduled Class person.'

Amrita smiled. 'Yes, I'm aware of that,' she said. 'Scheduled Class or Harijan, 'Beloved of God,' I grew up with the conventions. But they are mere euphemisms, as I'm sure you are well aware, Mr. Chatterjee. She was 'Scheduled Class' because she was born out of caste and will die there. Her children will almost certainly spend their lives performing the same menial jobs as she. She is Untouchable.'

Chatterjee's smile was frozen but he did not interrupt again.

'At any rate, she was squatting, cutting grass a blade at a time...' " [More]

"'But Jews maintain their ethnic and religious identity in some places,' his daughter insisted.

'Oh, sure. On Hebron and isolated areas of the Concourse you can find entire communities . . . Hasidic, Orthodox, Hasmonean, you name it . . . but they tend to be . . . nonvital, pictaresque . . . tourist-oriented.'

'Like a theme park?'

'Yes.' "

Hasidic Jews

Israel

1979

Ing, Dean. Soft Targets. New York: Tor (1996; c. 1979); pg. 56.

"He lingered at his table, reflecting on the irony of an orthodox Jewish sect so conservative t could find common cause with Third World radicals. 'Neturay Karta', his sabra mother had said, meant 'guardians of the city'. In the orthodox quarters of some Israeli cities lay houses and attitudes musty with a hundred generations of tradition. Old Testament Hebrew scriptures insisted that ha-messiach, the Messiah, would come one day--but at a time when He was most needed; a time when there was no Israel.

The strict fundamentalist Neturay Karta sect argued that, since the scriptures were scrupulously exact, the Messiah would not come so long as Israel existed. Therefore, they reasoned, they must abet the Coming of ha-messiach by destroying the State of Israel. " [More, not in DB.]

Hasidic Jews

Israel

1979

Ing, Dean. Soft Targets. New York: Tor (1996; c. 1979); pg. 57.

"If young kibbutz women strayed into Neturay Karta haunts in short sleeves or worse, shorts, they risked being stoned by fundamentalists who would rather have a dark carcass putrefying in the street than have it removed by a girl in such scandalous garb. Everett had heard of retaliatory raids by kibbutzim to break a few heads in the old quarter. Until now it had seemed a joke to Everett, albeit a bad one. But Chaim Mardor was no joke; he had shot down a passerby as if eradicating vermin. To Mardor it had to be a sort of holy war; an Arab's jehad. And there could be no greater glory for some than to die in a jehad. "

Hasidic Jews

Israel

1979

Ing, Dean. Soft Targets. New York: Tor (1996; c. 1979); pg. 60.

"Grand Rapids, North Dakota did not matter except that it provided its five-digit number: 58446. Virgin, Utah and Maryville, Missouri were equally insignificant. The numbers were all that counted. "

"'Listen. When I was in Jerusalem, during the debates for disbanding the Mossad, we used to bait the Hasid kids with quotes. We went at them like Baptists--quoting form the New Testament. We'd say things that sounded like the commentaries, and the Hasids would get confused. They felt like they should know these quotes, but of course they didn't.'

Barshak smiled. 'So what happened?'

'When their rabbi found out, he gathered together a bunch of rocks. Next time we came by, the Hasid kids picked up the stones and chased us off the block. It got a broken rib out of that one, but the uproar sent a howl throughout the city. When the cityis Jerusalem, that means something. The debates were stalled. The Mossad stayed in operation... For a little while, anyway.' "

"'We're marvels,' Arnstein said, relieved. 'But they live in a world of marvels, magic, ghosts, demons, gods who talk to men in dreams or father children on mortals--they don't just tell folk tales, they believe them, more so than any Holy Roller back home. Like a dancing Hasid drunk on God. We're friendly marvels.' "

"Among the crowd were thirteen heavily bearded men wearing the dark hats and coats over fringed shawls of the Hasidic Jewish community. These were retiring, taciturn men, a mystery and often apparently invisible to most of the denizens of the city. the men stopped their walking and astute murmurings when they came to the crowd watching the vampire announced the arrival of Wainwright McAfee. They stood there for the entire display... through the packing up and leaving... Nearly the entire crowd, who now blocked most of 72nd Street, stayed for a minute or two after McAfee disappeared... As the throng showed signs of leaving, however, the witnesses to the street madness were further confused. The thirteen Hasids strode, shoulders hunched and heads down, into a line in front of the gallery. Simultaneously, they threw off their coats, hats, pants, shawls and false beards, and there in the March chill, arm in bare arm, stood a leggy row of twelve chorus girls in feathers... "

"Night flight to Jerusalem [from New York]. Hassidim and their sober, beautiful children, a collection of Hadassah women chattering like magpies. Zoe followed the line through the corridor into the plane, heading for the Promised Land. "

"Finally, he said, 'I'll be honest with you, you weren't my first pick. I did go to the Hasidim first.'

He glanced at me to gauge my reaction.

'The Malachim?' The Hasidic terrorists went by the code name Malachim?' The Hasidic terrorists went by the code name Malachim Nikamah, the Angels of Vengeance.

He nodded. I raised my eyebrows, but held my tongue. It made sense. The Malachim were renowned hackers and the LINK was what they terrorized. They shared Michael's distaste for Letourneau's bid for messiah, and disbelief in the divinity of the LINK-angels.

'Things didn't work out with them,' he said.

'And you think they will with me?'

Michael nodded.

"I don't know about this,' I started. 'People with past terrorist connections representing hidden interests don't exactly inspire trust, you know...' " [Extensive other refs. to the Hasidic Malachim group, who turn out to be among novel's heroes. Multiple major characters are members, including their leader.]

"'He has more dotted lines to antigovernment groups than . . . I don't know what. Angelucci has his fingers in all the radical groups: Hasidim, Muslims . . . possibly other heathens as well. Not to mention the liberal fringe like ACLU, human rights campaigners--which we know is a front for queers--and God knows what else. He and his pals, like Jibril Freshta, have been stirring the pot of dissension for the last year...' "

Hasidic Jews

New York: New York City

2176

Bear, Greg. Moving Mars. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 195.

"...we passed a family of Chasids dressed in black. The men wore wide-brimmed hats and styled their hair in long locks around their temples. The women wore simple dressed in natural fabrics. The children skipped and danced happily, dressed in black and white.

'They're lovely, aren't they?' Orianna said, glancing over her shoulder at the family. 'Total goback! No enhancements, no therapy, neg the drive.'

'New York is great for that sort of thing,' Kite said. "

Hasidic Jews

Ontario: Toronto

2125

Anderson, Poul. Harvest of Stars. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 16.

"She noticed exceptions... Also bearded were a pair of obvious Chasidim... "

Pg. 83: "'There are your cooks.' And when he glared at her, she shrugged and said, 'What else does a Hasid yeshiva need women for?'

Jacob pushed gently through the newcomer Hasids, who stood passively in dark rows around the Rebbe, eyes cast down, like virgins facing a matchmaker. ";

Pg. 120: "A sigh broke out among the kibbutzniks. Around the room, the Hasid students appraised one another... The other Hasids congratulated Akiva loudly; some began to sing. "; Pg. 123: "Rabbi Meyer wailed. The Hasids gathered around the Rebbe while the women cried 'Shma, Yisrael!' and helped him from the room. The women followed after, weeping, dragging Rachel wide-eyed behind them. " [Many other refs. throughout story. Other refs. not in DB. Hasidic Jews are central to this story.]

"The Hasids whispered among themselves. The kibbutzniks looked at one another, raising eyebrows...

A sight broke out among the kibbutzniks. Around the room, the Hasid students appraised one another. " [This story features frequent tension between the liberal Jewish kibbutzniks who were the original settlers of Solomon's Row, and the newly arrived Orthodox Hasidic Jews. Many refs. not in DB.]

"According to Robbie, Skolnick had been bagged for several years by his court reporter, a Hasidic Jew by the name of Pincus Lebovic. Blue-eyed and foxy-looking behind the dense brown growth of his beard and pais, Pincus in his dark, outdated suits presided over the courtroom in a style bordering on tyrannical. He was cold-blooded and peremptory. It was even said that, on occasion, Pincus would halt proceedings, purportedly to change the paper in his stenographic machine, but actually to take the judge back to chambers to give him directions or, even, a scolding. The recognized brains of the team, Pincus handled all arrangements with the lawyers who 'talked' to the judge. " [More.]

"Nussboym had seen Lizards in Lodz do likewise when they spoke of their sovereign. They believed in the spirits of Emperors past as passionately as ultraorthodox Jews in God or good Communists in the dictatorship of the proletariat. "

Hasidic Jews

world

1985

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 133.

"...the religious networks, where, with sustained and general excitement, the Message [from extraterrestrials] was being discussed... The Message, Ellie believed, was a kind of mirror in which each person sees his or her own beliefs challenged or confirmed... Messianic fervor had arisen among the Sossafer Chasids. "

"More and more people arrived, prejudiced as Augustine. Barion was forced to subdivide his nebulous domain into different realities. Pagans were no problem as long as they had sunlight and greenery, nor the Jews so long as they could suffer and argue and Hasidim didn't ahve to deal with the new Zionists. "

"No group has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack, but Christendom spokesperson Shelia McEvers believes this to be the work of the LINK-terrorist group known as Malachim Nikamah [Hasidic Jews]... 'The method is very similar,' she said. 'Cruelty like this could only come from a non-Christian group like the Malachim shel Nikamah. Who else would do this kind of crazy, destructive thing?'

The Nation of Islam cautioned the Vatican regarding issuing broad statements against non-Christians, but joined in denouncing today's attack. Both superpowers donated extensively to the relief fund. "

"But for Elliena it was different. Jake knew enough earth history to draw a quick comparison. He knew what hate groups like the Nazis had done to Jews and others during the 1940s, what white supremacists [led largely by Southern Baptist preachers] had done to his own black ancestors in the southern United States and in Africa during past centuries--and these were just two examples of the long, puzzling saga of man's inhumanity to man. "

"He grabbed a cord that dangled from a wide rolled-up bolt of cloth that hung across the low ceiling behind him.

'As we feel better about ourselves, we become more potent in the pursuit of our lives and our beliefs. So without further elaboration or ceremony, let us all join hands and look to the future as, under my authority as the first grand marshall of the Metropolitan Boston and Cape Cod region, I declare this the first official meeting of the Boston chapter of the Friends of Humanity.'

'Excuse me?' Everett asked. 'Repeat?'

As if in answer, Harrowhouse yanked on the cord he held and a slip-knot released the bolt of cloth. It unrolled to reveal the big, cheerfully colored international logo spelling out in big block letters: FRIENDS OF HUMANITY. A matching blue border decorated the edge like patriotic bunting. " [Other refs., not in DB.]

"'We're part of a national organization now,' LaWanda gushed. 'Isn't it wonderful? He says there's going to be a rally in the Square tomorrow. The first one here ever.'

Friend of Humanity: the small but visibly growing anti-mutant hate group whose political power had grown to an astonishing degree in a short time. The head of the organization, Graydon Creed, was a legitimate Presidential candidate. They had the ears of senators and governors, CEOs and professors. At their best, they asserted that homo superior were a threat to the world's future. At worst, they were the harbingers of a worldwide holocaust and race war.

And here these normal-seeming people--LaWanda and Amanda, for pity's sake--involved themselves because they thought this was a fun time and a neat way to make new friends.

'So let us say together,' Harrowhouse smiled, closing his eyes as if floating blissfully on a cloud, 'Earth for humanity!'

'Earth for humanity!' they all repeated... "

hate groups

USA

1997

Burton, Levar. Aftermath. New York: Warner Books (1997); pg. x.

"2012Lawrence Everette is elected President of the United States. Four days later he is assassinated by a white extremist in a chemical bomb attack. Riots break out in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Atlanta. "

hate groups

USA

2019

Burton, Levar. Aftermath. New York: Warner Books (1997); pg. 62.

"Was her kidnapping racially motivated? During the war the groundswell of pent-up anger went on to manifest itself in a purging of all the hate-mongering institutions that the minority population had been subjected to for so many years. Klansmen, neo-Nazis and skinheads had been hunted down and systematically executed. Many were publicly hanged by angry mobs, just as blacks had once been hanged by white-robed assassins. " [Other refs. not in DB. Racial intolerance is a major theme in this novel, which depicts a near future in which minorities have risen to power.]

"Most people still trusted Wonder Woman, he [the newscaster] reported, rattling off numbers, a poll, a graph, demographics. It seemed that the greatest concentrations of hatred were not at all where Helena might have expected, had she thought in terms of conventional cliches. There was a strong anti-Wonder Woman sentiment in the Deep South, which did not surprise Helena, but the figures were even higher in the Pacific Northwest, and for reasons she could not understand, lowest through the middle of the Bible Belt.

This thing is hitting people in places they didn't realize they had. It's bringing out a kind of insanity that has nothing to do with race or education, with politics or even religion. It starts as a religious argument--Rebecca Chandler started with that--but it turns into something else. Some kind of primitive thing, jealousy, fear. Xenophobia. "

"To hang onto their power in the face of the successful revolt of the South and increasing dissatisfaction in the North, the aging rulers of the rump Socialist Republic of Vietnam had resorted to increasingly savage repression. 'They're like Nazis up there.' "

"...the Fraternal Order of Hate Groups--given to allegedly libertarian groups only if they have engaged in conspicuously authoritarian behavior and have developed a philosophical line proving that said behavior is actually libertarian. "

"You had to keep visualizing what you wanted, put some images into motion. Sure, you could do the hatha yoga bit all you liked, practice eating a slice of whole wheat for an hour, chewing each bite until it dissolved into nothingness. But beyond the discipline, you had to keep on dreaming yourself out the other end of the tunnel. "

"We drove through all the heat of that day and toward evening were approaching Sansanne-Hausa, where they were building a camp for the Tuareg... 'Have you found any water?' I yelled down, first in French, then in Hausa, which they could understand. "

"'Do you speak French?' I asked the Tuareg, thinking I could reason with them... but not one of them would talk to me in French. I tried Hausa and the little Yoruba I knew, but they would speak only Tamasheq... "

"We passed four Tuareg women in the streets of Sinder. One looked like the woman in my dreams, then I thought all four did, then I thought ever woman I saw--Songhai, Hausa, Fulani, Tuareg--all looked like that woman. "

Hausa

world

1999

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 352.

"Their knowledge of Russian, Mandarin, Tamil, and Hausa would be even mor rudimentary. "

Pg. 103: "The Los Angeles had chosen that moment to rise above the horizon and to float like a wind-blown ember west across the strange constellations of Maui-Covenant. "; Pg. 105: "Shuttling the workers around their chosen singularity-point some 163,000 kilometers out from Maui-Covenant was a lot less glamorous for us than the four month leap from Hegemony-space. " [This story takes place on a planet called 'Maui-Covenant.']

Hawaii

Hawaii

1810

Powers, Tim. The Anubis Gates. New York: Ace (1983); pg. 187.

"He'd seen them before, in the Foster Gardens of Nuuanu in Hawaii, on a tall tree... "

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